BAMBOO SHOOTSWorks of fiction and poetry by friends of Bamboo Ridge Press.

ON HE RODE

Call me crazy . . . for even thinking about it. God or no-God? Why
wouldn’t it make a difference? I’m sure His hand was seriously in play
that time Evers and I scored our famous ten-dollar lid at the olden
golden International Marketplace, that masterpiece of 60’s Waikiki
funk, the whole karmic carnival. He made it so easy. Or She, if you
prefer.

The dark, skinny, bushy-haired local kid is slump-standing next to a
puka-shell kiosk, staring blankly out at everything and nothing, an
actual real-life flesh-and-blood cigar-store Polynesian. Who’d think?

I’ve been living on the Leeward Coast for over a year longer than
malahini Evers, and the local kid seems to fasten on me. The raised
eyebrows and quick, upward chin bob, which I return, of course. Darkly
Cosmopolitan representative of all the races in Hawaii, he nods again
and undertones, “Wot chu like?” Not unfriendly.

“Wot chu get?” I reply, trying my limited pidgin. Can I get away with
it? Will he let me?

“Wan fool leed. Ten dollah.”

“Only ten?” I ask. “Good kine?”

“Onney da bes, bla.”

“Where stay?”

“Come. I show you.” He nods over his left shoulder.

We follow mauka through what’s left of Waikiki jungle, through an
alley near the Ala Was. It’s darker here, and quiet. He stops and
pulls a flattened brown paper bag out of his faded jams, opens it, and
shows its dark green contents. “Like smell?”

“No need.” Even from a distance it smells great. He takes my wadded
ten, I take his flat brown bag, and we head in opposite directions.
Easy. Unbelievably easy.

Then I hear the near-silent slap, slap, slap of his rubber slippers
suddenly stop. “Eh!” he says.

Oh-oh, I think.

“You like seeds?”

“What kine seeds?” Question: Does he have friends? What kine friends?
Waiting ones?

“Same kine,” he says. “Good kine.”

“How much?”

“Na, na. I geef’m.”

“You sure?”

“Shua. Come. I geef you.”

Oh-oh, I think again, but we follow him warily, Evers at my heels,
almost to the Ala Wai. Coming to a closely sheared mock-orange hedge,
he reaches inside its tight foliage and pulls out a knotted clear
plastic bag full — really full — of fat, healthy-looking marijuana
seeds, many proud Marys, just begging to sprout.

“You like?” he asks. “Pakalolo. Same kine.”

“What’s the deal?” There’s got to be a catch.

“Na, na, na.” He waves his hand, grins, gives me the bag of seeds,
and fades forever into the darkening night. No worries, bla.

Half-spooked by our colossal good fortune, we find the car and say
very little on the drive back to Waianae in my valiant white Valiant
wagon. Don’t laugh. She’ll pull the Pali, as used-car salesmen used to
claim.

There’s no concrete divider between opposing lanes on the still-new
H-1. Six lanes of cars hurtling a combined 120 mph toward each other
with nothing in between. The good old days.

We’ve also got that full bag of freckled seeds, plump and shiny
insurance against the future. Just try to get a deal like that these
days. Truth is, you couldn’t get a deal like that ever, even those
days. Which can only make you wonder. Why us?

But aren’t we all part of a three-score-and-ten winnowing and
purification process of qualification to, say, pluck harpstrings and
hand-assemble Teslas throughout eternity? Would that be on Mars? Is
that somewhere near Heaven? Or Hawaii? (Don’t ask.)

For the rest of that spring and early summer we enjoy the fruits of
our good fortune, which include fast motorcycles and faster women,
party dolls and beach blanket bingo, Midnight lobster dives with
waterproof flashlights and three-prong sling spears. Overall, the
finest of fine times uninterrupted by introspection or self-reflection
of any kind, thank you, Lord, thank you, Jesus. Amen for now, and
away we go.

On departing the Islands for the summer, I make sure to leave a
thriving secret garden in the capable hands of responsible
stay-at-home colleagues. Think concupiscent cannabinoid contraband
cordials caringly conceived, cultivated, curated, conserved, and
consumed. Under the influence, you might say. Life is good, and next
year is on its way.

Coda: “You know,” she says, “Without your stories you’d be nothing.”

Well, yes. Of course. She’s a young thing, Minolta in hand, snapping
pictures of me handing her the doobie without asking permission, like
I’m just part of the local color up for tourist grabs. From her point
of view, of course I am.

“Truer words did rosebud lips ne’er lisp, fair damsel. If you haven’t
lived enough to make stories, you haven’t lived enough. You are, as
you correctly aver, nothing.”

She inhales inexpertly, with a series of small coughs and the back of
her hand to her mouth. “Will I see you again next fall?” she chokes,
handing me back the still-smoking culpatory cylinder.

“You’re in my plans,” I reply. “Definitely.”

“I’ll take that as a firm ‘maybe’,” she says, sneaking in one last
candid shot, the one I’ve been carefully posing for, then clambering
crab-like over lava rocks and away on her lithe and lightly freckled
limbs.

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FEATURED ISSUE

Issue 94ISBN: 978-0-910043-80-933% OFF COVER PRICE!
With the work of more than 30 writers, this issue of BAMBOO RIDGE opens with the work of the Editors’ Choice Awards winners, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán for poetry, Tyler Miranda for prose, and Janine Oshiro for new BR writer. Each will receive a $100 prize in addition to the author honorarium.
The award winners are followed by “Not Pau Yet,” a special section of selections from works in progress, excerpts from book-length manuscripts by Jeffrey Carroll, Lee Cataluna, J. Freen, Ann Inoshita, Juliet S. Kono, Alexei Melnick, and Kahikahealani Wight.
Featured artist in this issue is Fred H. Roster, professor of Art and Art History at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. The veteran sculptor’s work has always been provocative, humorous, and inventive. A portfolio of his work is accompanied by an insightful article by Lisa A. Yoshihara, Director of the UH Art Gallery.
Also included in this anthology, new work by Juliet S. Kono, Wing Tek Lum, Joseph Stanton, Brenda Kwon, and Michael Little, as well as two intimate poems by Bamboo Ridge Press co-founder and poetry editor Eric Chock’s wife, Ghislaine D. Chock.